Commentaria in I Esdrae
St. Basil, in the epistle to Chilo: “Esdras,” he says, “poured forth all the divine books by the command of God.” Theodoret has the same, in the preface to the Psalms; Isidore, book 6 of the Etymologies, chapter 3; Rabanus, book De Instit. Cler., chapter 54; Leontius, who relates it more clearly in his book Against the Sects, action 2, at the end (it is extant in vol. 4 of the Bibliotheca of the Holy Fathers). “This return,” he says, “Esdras described, who, when he had come to Jerusalem and found all the books burnt at the time when they had been led away into captivity, is said to have set down in writing, brought forth from memory, those 22 books which we have listed above.”
Leo Castrius proves the same in the preface to Isaias, 4: namely that Esdras restored the books of the law from memory. Nor is this wonderful. More wonderful is what we read of St. Anthony of Padua, that he was so versed in all Holy Scripture that he was surnamed by the Pontiff “the Ark of the Testament.” “For he had the pages of both Testaments so fixed in his memory that, like Esdras, he could, had the matter required it, restore all the divine writings entire from his own memory, even if all the codices had been utterly destroyed,” says the author of his life.
But although this opinion may seem probable on account of the great authority of the Fathers, yet far more probable, and certain on sound reason, is the contrary opinion, namely that neither were all the sacred books burnt by the Chaldeans, nor restored from memory by Esdras.
This is proved first, because we nowhere read that the Chaldeans burnt these books; and even supposing they had burnt all those who were at Jerusalem (which is incredible), yet they could not burn those which were everywhere being worn by the hands of the Jews throughout all Judea, indeed throughout the whole world, especially of the scribes and Rabbis, and were read continually in the Synagogues.
Secondly, because Daniel, chapter 9, says that in the first year of Darius he understood the number of seventy years, of which Jeremias the Prophet had written. He had therefore the Prophecy of Jeremias and of the other Prophets, and read it constantly.
Thirdly, because the Prophecy of Isaias, chapter 45, concerning Cyrus, was shown to him by the Jews, and so made him favourable to them, as Josephus testifies, book 11, chapter 1: “This Cyrus knew from the reading of the book which contains the Prophecy of Isaias, written two hundred and ten years before his own age.”
To the fourth book of Esdras I answer that it is apocryphal. Add that in that book nothing is said of the sacred books of Moses or of the Prophets being restored, but only that in 40 days two hundred and four books were written out by five men, of which seventy were to be kept and handed on to the wise, while the rest were to be openly set forth, to be read by the worthy and the unworthy; which have nothing in common with the books of which we treat. See more in Bellarmine, vol. 1, book 2, chapter 1, and Pererius, preface to Genesis, chapter 7.
To the Fathers I answer that most of them meant nothing else than that Esdras arranged the sacred books, which were in disorder, into right order, and divided them into lessons (which in Hebrew they call Perasioth, and read in succession in the Synagogues). Moreover, that he corrected the errors which had crept in in great number through the fault of the copyists, and restored the books to their former purity and brightness, and that by knowledge not so much acquired as divinely infused. Hence in Esdras chapter 7, verse 8, the Septuagint say that Esdras read what was written in those books in the knowledge of the Lord, that is, through knowledge infused by God.
Finally, Esdras supplied what was lacking in the several books. Hence many hold that, with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, he added to Moses chapter 34 of Deuteronomy, and thereby described the death and burial of Moses; that he did the same in Josue, last chapter, and in Jeremias, last chapter, where the reign of Evilmerodach and the exaltation of Jechonias are narrated: for Jeremias, being already dead, could not write this. In like manner he seems to have supplied the end of Tobias and Judith: for the book of Judith is thought to have been written by Joachim the Pontiff, who died before Judith. Thus Esdras seems to have added “unto this present day,” wherever it is said, which is so often inserted and repeated; so Salianus, in the year of the world 3621, n. 10, and Bede, book 2, Allegories on Esdras.
St. Jerome in the Helmeted Prologue, and Eusebius in the Chronicle, year of the world 4740, add that Esdras invented the new Hebrew letters which we still use, and left the ancient ones to the Samaritans, that the Jews might have no commerce with them, not even in letters.
Others add that the points (which are the vowels of the Hebrews) were invented by Esdras, but they err: for these did not exist in the time of the Seventy Interpreters, who were two hundred years after Esdras, nor in the time of St. Jerome, who was nine hundred years after; but a little after him they were devised by the Rabbis in the city of Tiberias in Galilee, in the year 476 after the birth of Christ, as Genebrard teaches from Elias in the Massoreth, under the year of the world 4573.
You will ask fourthly, at what time the history of Esdras and Nehemias took place. I answer: at the time when, the 70 years of the captivity being finished, the Jews were freed from Babylon by Cyrus. The book of Esdras therefore contains what happened about this deliverance from the first year of the monarchy of Cyrus to the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, when Esdras returned from Babylon to Jerusalem with the other Priests and Levites, as is plain from chapter 7, which is a space of 78 years; but the book of Nehemias contains the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem from year 7 to year 39 of the same Artaxerxes, as is plain from chapter 13:6, which is a space of 25 years. Hence these two books were written in Hebrew, but with many Chaldaic words mixed in. For the Hebrews in Babylon corrupted the Hebrew tongue and mingled it with the Chaldaic. He also records the letters of the kings of Babylon in the same language in which they were written by them, namely Chaldaic, in chapters 4, 5, 6, 7; for which reason Daniel also wrote his book partly in Hebrew, partly in Chaldaic.